I started hitching about the country when I was 16 or 17 years old. I found the music that was played around the country - Irish music - had a particular resonance.

Once we start shooting, it's in there. You're trying to get into a place where you rise to the work, rather than make it manageable or make it work for you.

I think it's doubly important, now that we see so many people failing. When the norm is an anti-hero, there's a serious loss when you cannot portray a decent person on screen without it becoming slightly sentimental or feeling like it's unrealistic.

He earned every precious beautiful moment life gave back to him.

I don't want people poking around in my private stuff. They've no business in it. My work is what I give to people, that's my job, and that's where it stops.

You work for it. You don't have to massage it, so that it fits into the way it has to be. He's just too vigorous a writer and the dialogue is too sparking to do anything other than inhabit it and give it as much truth as you can. You just try to make it part of your DNA. That's what the challenge is, really.

I started hitching about the country when I was 16 or 17 years old. I found the music that was played around the country - Irish music - had a particular resonance.